


The Romantic Universe

by nirejseki



Series: Soulmate AU [1]
Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV), The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Fluff, Gen, M/M, Multi, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, excessive world-building, non-angsty kill-your-soulmate universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-07
Updated: 2016-04-07
Packaged: 2018-05-31 20:26:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,779
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6486244
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nirejseki/pseuds/nirejseki
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Based on the following prompt on tumblr:</p><p>ColdWave Prompt: Soulmates AU. Everyone is born with a soul mark(words, a symbol, whatever) but your SoulMate is the only one who can kill you permanently. There have been horror stories about people finding their SM only AFTER they've killed them because once you kill your SM...you follow shortly. It can take anywhere from seconds to days but it's irreversible and you WILL die. If someone else tries to kill a soulmate, said SM can be revived with minimal damage. Added reincarnation is optional.</p><p>BUT, I am both terrible at soulmate AUS and I write mostly fluff, so here it is: the non-angsty kill-your-soulmate AU, mostly starring Len’s endless bitching</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Romantic Universe

Soulmates weren’t worth the sheer amount of angst they incurred, Len had decided years ago.

Soulmarks were universal, of course; everybody had one – some birthmark you were born with that was supposed to represent the person (persons?) who was your perfect other half. That person that the romantic universe decided was the one for you. And, of course, because the universe could not bear to rip apart what it had finally united, once you were bonded with your Soulmate, you were effectively immortal for the duration of your life (excepting old age, because – Len assumed – even the universe could only put up with a set of lovebirds flittering about in the honeymoon stage for so long. He wasn’t really into romantic philosophy.)

Of course, in a world of eight billion souls and about 16 billion acres of habitable land, the chance of _finding_ your Soulmate was akin to winning the lottery. Three times. In a row. While being hit by lightning. 

There was a reason that spending too much time seeking out your Soulmate was considered a bit gauche. (Len particularly liked the stories about alchemists who so desired immortality that they decided not to wait for their Soulmate, but create their own bond as a shortcut – Faust, Frankenstein, Voldemort…)

Once you reach that state of immortality, you could only die with your Soulmate or by their hand, and if the latter, you would soon follow your Soulmate into death. Once together, never apart, the old saying goes. The philosophers had yet to decide if this was romantic, tragic, tragi-comedic, comedic, ironic, meant to help, meant to hurt, or whatever the hell they were on about this month. 

Len thought it was crap, mostly. Once you were through bonding with your Soulmate, it was just like any other relationship, except no one would touch you if you broke up (see also: no one ever believing you about your open relationship) and you got a “get out of death free” card for a decade or two until the universe decided you had to die (or almost-die, if you were clever and lucky) in some epic tragedy. Funny how bonded Soulmates never seemed to have quiet lives. Having a Soulmate was like a red flag to the universe: “Come, please fuck with our lives!”

Judging by Shakespeare, you were doomed to have a terribly dramatic life, involving a pair discovering that they were Soulmates only after one had mortally wounded the other (woe! the tragedy!), or being divided by some great societal force that forced you to choose between your Soulmate and your life and often resulted in suicide (woe! the tragedy!), or you would end up in some highly specific and unlikely scenario leading to a screwball comedy of errors where you misplaced or misidentified your Soulmate and spent the next two acts untangling yourself and possibly a donkey (woe! the comedy!).

Plus, there was always the worry that you’d end up killing your Soulmate somehow. No one ever seemed to think about that when they were sighing over the concept! Len sometimes wonders if the trade-off life gave him for meeting his Soulmate at the statistically improbable age of 14 was that he’d end up worrying himself into a pre-mature heart attack over accidentally killing the idiot. And himself too, of course. 

Oh, sure, it was easy enough to avoid shooting the bastard. Most of the time. Well, unless he’d been _really_ annoying. But “die by your Soulmate’s hand” was so goddamn _vague_. 

What if you shot out of the side of a building and it fell on your Soulmate’s head? What if you were driving and you got into a car accident, leading to your Soulmate getting crushed? What if you neglected to give the order to pull back in time to distract your Soulmate from his pathological obsession with fire and thereby he ended up _staying in a burning building instead of running out_? (Okay, so they’d disproven that one, but Len had suffered a serious panic attack that felt like it was the feeling of following Mick into death, which meant Mick was dead, which had led to another panic attack…not one of his favorite days.)

There was a reason he was always trying to break up with Mick. It was the only thing he could think of to keep the bastard alive. 

So Len tended to stay quiet when – as it inevitably did – the conversation on the Waverider turned to questions of Soulmates. Kendra, whose Soulmate bond had been forcibly broken into by Savage in his alchemical quest for immortality, was constantly questioning why she hadn’t followed her Soulmate into death this time around – the conclusion they’d reached so far was that since Savage had taken the immortality portion of their bond, both causing their reincarnation and his need to find and take the bond again during each of their lifetimes by method of murder, him having killed both Soulmates in every lifetime thus far was not necessarily a sign that he needed to do it again this time. That, or maybe Carter’s death was the universe’s sign that they would succeed in stopping Savage during her lifetime and that she could move on to being a normal person, without a Soulmate and without a Destiny. (No one raised the suggestion that once Savage was dead and her bond freed from his influence, she would follow Carter down at last, but they were all thinking it.)

And, of course, this led the _rest_ of them to speculate on their own Soulmates. 

Sara wondered aloud if her death-and-reincarnation meant that she could no longer bond with her Soulmate, which meant she could walk right on by her Soulmate without ever knowing it was them. (Len remembered the moment he met Mick for the first time. Their Soulmarks were on their left arms, right under the bend of their elbow in the soft inner arm; they hadn’t even seen each other’s when Mick had offered him a hand up and they’d both yowled like cats being shocked by electricity, mostly because that’s _exactly what it felt like_. He didn’t think Sara had anything to worry about, but since he couldn’t say for sure, he didn’t say anything.)

Rip would remind them all about his dead-wife-and-kid story and spend the entire time they were talking about Soulmates sulking. Every time. He was such a killjoy. 

Stein was married; not to his Soulmate, but to the love of his life, so he wasn’t really worried. (Jax glumly commented that he would have to meet his Soulmate, because there would be no other reason any girl would put up with the “so I’m in a permanent but assuredly non-sexual relationship with another man in which we have to enter each other in again let me emphasize a non-sexual way on a regular basis” thing.)

Today it was Ray’s turn. He was, unsurprisingly, a ray of goddamn sunshine about it. Talked about his fiancé dying (not his Soulmate, of course) and how it taught him that you didn’t need to follow your lover into death to feel absolutely wrecked by it (hey, there’s a thought – maybe you could get out of following your Soulmate into death via _metaphorical_ death! Len wonders if anyone has ever tried that.) He also made saccharine cooing noises about finding love again and not waiting for your Soulmate and defying the universe for love, etc., all the usual shit that people said when they were in love with someone not their Soulmate (and for extra kicks this time, someone who knew who their Soulmate was). 

Len was rolling his eyes as Ray hit the third verse of his endless ode to free will when Sara caught him at it and pounced. “What about you, Leonard?” she asked.

“What _about_ me,” he drawled, but he already knew where this was going.

“Tell us how your Soulmate quest is going!” Kendra enthused. “We’ve all talked about ours.”

“I’m afraid I don’t have anything to share. Sorry to disappoint.”

“Oh, come now, Mr. Snart,” Stein said. “You must have some story to share – some romance gone south as she goes off to find her Soulmate, some meeting that felt so charged with energy that you almost thought she was the one, something like that.”

Len rolled his eyes. “I once had a hooker turn down my money ‘cause of the Soulmate thing. The end. Happy?”

They did not look happy.

“C’mon, man, you’ve got to give us more than that,” Jax said. Ray was _pouting_ at him. Actual, literal wouldn’t-look-out-of-place-on-a-five-year-old’s-face pouting. Sara and Kendra were both trying to mimick his puppy dog eyes, but were mostly looking like they would eviscerate him if he didn’t come up with something better. 

Ladies and gentlemen: his crew.

How was this his life?

“C’mon, Leonard,” Sara said. “Give us something to work with here. Tell us about your first girlfriend.”

Len sighed. That’s the problem with these Soulmate conversations; once people get started on them, they never let go. “Never had one,” he said shortly. 

“First boyfriend, then,” Sara said smoothly, pivoting without the slightest hint of concern, though eyebrows had otherwise gone up around the room.

Len’s lips twisted up. “Never had one of those, either.”

That got her to pause. “What, really? You’ve never been on a date with _anyone_?”

“Didn’t say that,” he drawled. “I’ve been on plenty of dates.”

Kendra rolled her eyes. “So you’re splitting hairs.”

“Not really,” he said, drawing the moment out for extra deliciousness. “People tend not to come back for a second date when they find out you’re already bonded to your Soulmate.”

Utter pandemonium. 

Len settles back with a smirk as they all start tripping over each other trying to talk at the same time, glancing up at Gideon to confirm that she’s recording this moment for posterity (or at least to show to Mick later on).

Rip looked _incredibly_ pissed off. “Why didn’t you mention this?” he roared. “The tactical advantage _alone_ , not to mention the benefits of having a virtual immortal on the team –”

“History book didn’t mention that bit, did it?” Len said as sweetly as he could manage. “Oh, wait, I keep forgetting, we ain’t in them.”

Kendra wanted to compare notes. Ray wanted to know _everything_. So did Stein, but in that creepy scientist sort of way that made Len think that his initial instinct of telling X-rated stories that no one needed to hear would backfire stupendously if he tried it. 

Jax wanted to know about the hooker thing. 

“Oh, yeah. Totally true,” Len assured him. “She found out I was bonded and said she wouldn’t do it no matter how much I paid, said something about being enough of a homewrecker without adding a Soulmate bond to it.”

“But why _did_ you go to a hooker if you’re bonded?” Ray asks.

Did _no one_ believe in open relationships? He and Mick didn’t need anyone else, but why the hell _not_ – it’s been thirty years, you think no one ever gets bored, Soulmate or not?

He doesn’t say that. It’d just break Ray’s heart and Len gave up kicking puppies years ago.

“I ain’t the thing my Soulmate loves best,” he tries instead. It’s true, after all; Len is very comfortable with his place as Mick’s second-favorite thing in the universe, right after fire in all of its myriad shapes. It made getting Mick anniversary gifts _so much easier_. 

Nope, Ray still looked heartbroken and also exactly like that sweet-faced border collie mutt Mick had quasi-adopted some sixteen years ago. (Len maintains that that’s why Mick couldn’t bear to leave Ray behind in the gulag. Mick had said some crap about Ray taking a beating for him, but when Len had given that excuse the respect it deserved – read, none – Mick had eventually admitted, with the most hilarious bemused expression, that he did get sometimes the weird urge to pet Ray’s hair.)

Sara waits her turn and asks, “But if you had a Soulmate, why did you come on this mission? How could you bear to leave her – or him – behind?”

Len gave her a pointed look. Seriously? Just because he and Mick weren’t big on public displays of affection didn’t mean they weren’t excessively obvious about it. There is a limit to how many times you can platonically mention how important your partner is to you over the course of an hour and Len should know, he exceeds it on a regular basis and _can’t seem to stop himself_. 

“That is a good question, actually,” Rip said. “I wouldn’t mind hearing the answer.”

Oh, god, and this is the guy driving them through space and time. Forget defeating Savage, they’re doomed to become dinosaur chow.

“I never said I left him behind,” he said slowly, enunciating each word. 

Sara got it. Kendra got it. Jax got it. Stein, Ray and Rip seemed to be having trouble processing. 

Look at that: evidence that heteronormativity actually kills brain cells. 

“You’re Soulmated with _Rory_?” Jax exclaimed.

Three more lightbulbs went off as the straight white men of the crew got with the program.

“Not the thing he loves best,” Kendra mused. “Fire, right?”

“Congrats, you win a stuffed animal.” He smirks at her and she laughs.

Sara isn’t laughing. “Leonard,” she said carefully. “Are you telling me that Mick – that _Kronos_ , the guy who’s been trying to kill us since this mission started, and who is currently locked in the brig – is your _Soulmate_?”

Len shrugged. “We knew it was going to happen somehow,” he said. “I don’t know of a pair of Soulmates that haven’t somehow faced the ‘die by each other’s hand’ clause.”

Rip’s face was turning some rather hilarious colors as he processed that his brand new shiny immortal asset suddenly turned into a gigantic liability. Len wished him luck with that. 

“And that’s why you didn’t kill him after the incident with the pirates!” Stein exclaimed. “You would have died as well.”

Len turned and glared at him. “I didn’t kill him because I didn’t want to kill him,” he said flatly. “Not out of self-preservation. I figured I’d come back for him after we’d offed Savage. After all, it ain’t like he’s going to die without me.”

 _No_ , Len thought to himself. _He lives long enough to get captured and brainwashed by the Time Masters. Great alternative. Thanks, universe!_

“But we’re going to reform him, right?” Ray said, big eyes wide. “So it won’t be an issue.”

“Unless the Time Masters already know about Mr. Snart and Mr. Rory’s bond,” Rip said cuttingly. “And intend to use that against us.”

“If they’d known, don’t you think they would’ve done something slightly more sophisticated than send Mick to kill us with no backup?” Len asked. He’d thought about it. Sure, bonds _could_ be obvious, if you were the type of look for it (judging from what he’s seen of Rip, he’s going to guess that the Time Masters aren’t that type). And he didn’t think Mick – even a brainwashed version – would willingly tell anyone about their bond. It just wasn’t the top thing on Mick’s mind. _Especially_ when he was pissed at Len.

(Mick was a pragmatist at heart – none of this “all the people in the world and I get stuck with YOU?” junk. Their bond was, and that was that; it was neither good nor bad. If Len pissed him off, it was because Len had pissed him off.) 

“Perhaps he refrained from killing you, Mr. Snart, because he knew it would impeded him in finishing his mission,” Rip said haughtily.

“Which is, of course, why he left you and Stein alive and unconscious on the floor,” Len drawled. “Excellent tactical thinking, that.”

“Aren’t you worried that it’s permanent?” Kendra asked him. “The brainwashing?”

Len shifted slightly. He’d thought about it, of course, particularly at first when he’d been bitter and angry and _lacked a hand_ (the universe takes away, but human technology gives back, so _there_ ). But, hell, Mick and him were Soulmates, after all, and even at the moments of absolutely perfect universe-rending drama, with Mick at his mercy in forest, with him at Mick’s mercy on the jump ship, they hadn’t killed each other.

The mark in his inner arm burned, muscles twitching as if they were being shocked by a low-level electrical charge. The way it always did if he’d ditched Mick for too long, telling him it was time to go back, just waiting to shock them both again the way it had the first time they’d met.

Len smirked.

Nope. He wasn’t worried at all.

**Author's Note:**

> The tumblr post is at http://robininthelabyrinth.tumblr.com/post/142404536874/coldwave-prompt-soulmates-au-everyone-is-born 
> 
> Feel free to send me other prompts! I prefer ColdFlash and ColdWave, but I'm open minded :)


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